And certain persons, having come down from Judaea, taught the brethren, If ye shall not have been circumcised according to the custom of Moses, ye cannot be saved.
The church at Antioch was full of new believers who had never been Jews. Then men came down from Judea and attached a condition to salvation, which forced one question: is Christ alone enough to save?
The rite these teachers pressed was not a private matter of conscience. It carried a whole system with it, and it rebuilt something God had taken down.
Circumcision "according to the custom of Moses," that is, according to the law, tied the circumcised person to Judaism. By asking for it, these teachers were trying to rebuild the middle wall of partition which God had broken down. There is no such partition in the church. We who belong to it stand on a completely new basis. Whether Jew or Gentile, we are made one new man… So these men came down and they said in effect, "You will have to make these people a kind of second-rate Jew. You'll have to bring them into our legal system, or they'll never be saved."
Notice what these men did not say. They never attacked the gospel openly — and that, one writer argues, is exactly what made them dangerous.
An addition no one had a right to make endangers the truth of God even more than the open opposition of unbelief. These men did not openly deny the gospel. They did not teach that a religious ceremony by itself could save anyone. But they did insist that circumcision was necessary for salvation. This undermines Christianity, which is not just promise but accomplished work… What does law or circumcision have to do with Him who is at the right hand of God?
Where these men came from mattered. It lent them authority they had not earned, and Paul saw what their message would cost.
These men came from Jerusalem, so they seemed to have the approval of the assembly and of the twelve apostles there. That gave their statements greater weight. Paul and Barnabas saw how serious their error was, and they "had no small dissension and debate with them" — and well they might. To insist that keeping the law of Moses was essential to salvation nullified Paul's gospel. It destroyed the doctrine of grace. It raised the deeds of the law into at least a partly saving grace.
The verse also gives them no title. It says they taught the brothers, but it never calls them brothers.
They are not called "brothers," we notice. In our chapter Paul does not hesitate to call them "false brothers secretly brought in." So even this early, unconverted men were getting in among the saints of God, despite apostolic watchfulness and care!
The form of the error changes; the principle does not. Any condition added to Christ turns the gospel into something else.
They did not say, "You are Christians, and that is fine. But now you also need to be circumcised. You need to keep the law to live a holy life for God." No, they said, "Unless you are circumcised, you cannot be saved." The first view is more subtle, but it is very dangerous. It is an attack of the enemy to corrupt this new testimony of God's grace. The gospel is one hundred percent grace. To put one percent law into it, as these enemies did, corrupts it… Today this happens in many forms. For example, some people say, "I have been baptized, so I am saved."
The teachers had no text and no apostle behind them, yet the disturbance spread anyway — and the trouble was carried to the one place where it could be ended for good.
They preach their legal doctrine boldly and without a doubt, as men of their sort usually do… One would think it need not have caused much alarm, for they could quote neither Scripture nor apostle for it. But the sheep of Christ are, sadly, a timid people. A loud voice and a confident tone tend to dismay them, if not carry them along… Jerusalem is to be the place of settlement, and for this very reason: the Jewish yoke is to be taken off the necks of the Gentiles for ever, and no other hands could do it so well.
- The addition. They did not deny the gospel. They added to it, and that addition endangers the truth even more than open unbelief does.
- The wall. Circumcision "according to the custom of Moses" tied a person to Judaism. Demanding it rebuilt the wall God had taken down.
- The weight. They came from Judea, so they seemed to carry the backing of Jerusalem and the twelve. That is why their words shook people who had nothing to fear.
- The measure. The gospel is one hundred percent grace, and one percent law corrupts it. Today the same error wears newer clothes: "I was baptized, so I am saved."
- The outcome. The question went to Jerusalem. There the very men thought to hold the right to impose the yoke lifted it off the Gentiles for ever.
A commotion therefore having taken place, and no small discussion on the part of Paul and Barnabas against them, they arranged that Paul and Barnabas, and certain others from amongst them, should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about this question.
Antioch was a mostly Gentile church, and visitors from Judea had just told its converts that circumcision was necessary for salvation. This verse records what Paul and Barnabas did next: they fought back hard, then carried the question up to Jerusalem instead of settling it themselves.
The men from Judea were not adding a small detail to the gospel.
Men from Judea, claiming to know Christ, came to Antioch. They taught the Gentile believers that they had to be circumcised to be saved. Of course, such a mixing of Judaism with Christianity would corrupt the whole character of the gospel of the grace of God. Paul and Barnabas saw this and stood against this effort of the enemy.
Where a teacher comes from can carry more weight with people than what he teaches.
The troublemakers came from Judea, and that would tend to lend weight to their words with the weak and ignorant. Satan is always active to take advantage of this. Human tradition creeps in easily, and just as naturally flatters the flesh… We can never trust human tradition, even among disciples. God is jealous for His word. That word bears constant witness to Christ, and so it witnesses against human pride.
Paul had the authority of an apostle. Writers see God's hand in the fact that he did not use it to close the case.
God did not allow Paul and Barnabas to settle the question at Antioch. Such a decision would not have ended the controversy; it would have made two assemblies. But once the Jewish Christians and the assembly at Jerusalem allowed liberty to the Gentiles, no one could oppose their freedom from the law. The apostles did not settle the point by their apostolic authority, although that authority confirmed the decree.
Why send the question to Jerusalem? Because the trouble had come from there.
Paul and Barnabas themselves were unable to settle the dispute. Self-will cannot be beaten, even by apostles… Ending the dispute at Antioch might have been dangerous, however desirable that was in itself. The evil was deep-rooted in principle by its very nature. It would surely have broken out again later, and elsewhere — probably worst of all in Jerusalem itself. So it was true wisdom to take the further discussion of the question back to the source the mischief had come from.
The ESV says Paul and Barnabas "were appointed" to go; the older translation quoted below reads "they determined." Paul's own account in Galatians adds something more.
The whole of Galatians 2 gives us remarkable insight into what was at stake in the discussion, which started at Antioch and ended at Jerusalem: nothing less than the truth and liberty of the gospel. Our chapter says "they determined" that Paul and others should go to Jerusalem. Yet Paul himself went up "by revelation" — the Lord made it clear to him that he was to go… The Galatian letter shows that Paul was fully assured what the mind of God was in this matter, but that God also showed him he should agree to the question going to Jerusalem for settlement there.
The word "elders" was old language long before the church used it.
Elder is a word that has come down from the early family days of Israel (Ex. 3:16). The family was the model of government, and in the family the father, as the elder, had authority. The nation then followed the same pattern, and the heads of households became the heads of the nation… Acts 11:30 gives us the first use of the word for leaders in the Church of God, and it appears often in that sense afterwards.
The way the question travelled has been read as a working model for churches facing disputes that reach beyond one town.
We do not have apostles today, nor a "Jerusalem" as in Acts 15. Yet Acts 15 lays down an important principle for us to act on at all times. Questions that affect the Church as a whole call for representative brothers from the assemblies to weigh them together, seeking the Lord's guidance in prayer and consultation. No assembly and no person has the right to act alone in matters that affect the whole Church.
- The trouble — the demand that Gentiles must be circumcised would have corrupted the whole character of the gospel of grace. It carried the prestige of Judea, and human tradition always flatters the flesh.
- The resistance — Paul and Barnabas stood against it. The fight was for the truth and liberty of the gospel.
- The referral — the question went back to the place the error came from. Settling it at Antioch would have left the root alive, and the evil would have broken out again.
- The restraint — God did not let Paul close the case at Antioch. Such a decision would have made two assemblies instead of one settled church.
- The pattern — the church appointed who should go, and Paul went up "by revelation"; he knew God's mind, yet agreed to the referral. Questions that touch the whole Church still call for seeking the Lord together, not for acting alone.